Wanted Noise: second generation pop-punk spawn

“It’s hard to be a band that has the punk-style influence and exist in Hawaii,” says Jin Salamack, singer/bassist of Wanted Noise. “I got island fever. I love it to death, but if you’re a pop-punk band, you don’t survive in Hawaii. There are no places to play. Look at Pepper, they moved out here.”

Salamack made the mainland move for the surf, SDSU, and the San Diego music scene he had grown up dreaming about.“The main reason I moved to San Diego is my dad said I had to go to college. I wanted to come here because I wanted to form a new band in San Diego, which is where Unwritten Law and Sprung Monkey are from...all the ’90s bands that influenced me....

“I came out here hoping to dive into the San Diego pop-punk scene. But when I moved here I realized that scene didn’t really exist. When I got here it seemed all I found was DJs and bands playing electronic music. This isn’t what I signed up for.”

But through networking and random hookups, Salamack found three other rockers who all have degrees from SDSU or UCSD and who appreciate the pop-punk that once dominated the local scene.

“We base our music on nostalgia...on the music I grew up with. Our sound gets compared to the bands that were used on the soundtrack for [video games] Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 and 3."

Wanted Noise just returned (with fellow local band Deep Yogurt) from their first tour that took them up the coast to Vancouver, B.C. It coincided with the release of their seven-song “long EP,” “Plate Lunch,” and with drummer Taylor Wagner’s graduation from SDSU.

Wanted Noise (including singer/guitarists Suri Sherman and Caleb Atkins) appears Saturday, 3 p.m. at the Pour House in Oceanside.